The Australian Statistician to retire

The Australian Statistician, Brian Pink, has formally announced his retirement from the Australian Public Service and will leave the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 12 January 2014.

“It has been an honour and a great privilege to have been the 14th Australian to be given the opportunity to lead what is undoubtedly one of our nation’s great public institutions, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and its predecessor, the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics” Mr Pink said.

“The ABS has been providing Australians with the high quality statistics necessary for informed decision making for over 108 years now.

“The digital world in which we now live has enormous potential to provide new statistics to enhance the insights of policy makers, researchers and ordinary Australian’s into the changes taking place in our society, economy and environment. It also offers strategic opportunities to improve the productivity of governments and businesses,” said Mr Pink.

Mr Pink has led the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to achieve significant milestones during his seven year tenure including:

· Initiating an organisational transformation program titled ‘ABS 2017’ and corresponding business case submission for the Critical Statistical Infrastructure Program to improve the productivity of, and expand the services provided by, the ABS

· Successful completion of the 2011 Census and digitisation of the Census collection method which will improve the productivity and timelines of future Censuses

· The release of data from Australia’s largest and most complex health survey, the Australian Health Survey 2011-13 providing important health benchmarks

· Expanding the range and quality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander statistics

· The framework and documentation of the Essential Statistical Assets for Australia to enable more strategic investment in, and use of, government datasets and statistics

· A new Measures of Australia’s Progress framework and dashboard to help determine whether life in Australia is getting better

· ABS recognition, representation and collaboration internationally

Mr Pink was previously the Government Statistician and Chief Executive of Statistics New Zealand from 2000 to 2007, Chair of the OECD Committee on Statistics (2008-2012), Chair of the Statistics Committee of ESCAP (2010-2012), Vice Chair of the United Nations Statistical Commission (2010-2012), an ex officio member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council (2007 to date), President of the International Association for Official Statistics (2005-2007) and an Australian Electoral Commissioner (from 2007 to date).

As determined by the Census and Statistics Act 1905, the Governor-General, Ms Quentin Bryce AC CVO, has been formally advised of Mr Pink’s retirement. The Government will now start a process to appoint Mr Pink’s successor.